WOW!! DISAPPOINTING REVIEWS!! Began playing and thought this to be, yet, another BFG HOG/Adventure type game of smoke, dust, bells and whistles. Was I wrong!! From the very first scenes, Mystery Valley relies totally on a FASCINATING and RIVETING DARK storyline. BRAVO!! YES!! The "age-old" Mystery of "vampires" being investigated by the "modern-day" FBI gives this game a powerful twist of being fact rather than forgotten fiction. Good grief, there were some typos which does not take away from the INTRIGUING aspects of this awesome game. The scenes were APPROPRIATELY dark, gloomy and FOREBODING. The mood was set and did not deviate--keeping Gamer tightly locked into the plot--afraid to move on-- !! "Dracula" written by Bram Stoker was not set in Miami Beach, you see. I 'd rather give kudos to a BRILLIANTLY EXECUTED game that has minor flaws than to big-money game Developers who have the finances to market unlimited "eye candy". It seems my Reviews are usually in the minority and are rarely liked, however, they are honest and are written upon completion of gameplay!! AH! Quality--not quantity!! Enjoy! Mama Mia

This game was referenced in a new game that I loved, so I just had to try it. Yes, it is a hit for all those who love things that go bump in the night. The setting is a dilapidated old house with perfectly detailed graphics based on the setting. The puzzles are fun. The HOS do have a click penalty and some things can be hard to see as they are small, but the game isn't overridden with HOS. The story is what drives this game and that is right up my alley. The game is about 3 hours long for me. I loved it and do highly recommend it to those who like the dark side. If you are looking for bright, loaded with extras, cuddly helpers, fairy tale, cookie cutter type of game, this is not for you. Otherwise, delve in and enjoy

This game is not for the faint hearted. There are rats running around and ghosts passing by as well as vampire like creatures. As a child, in your hometown of Mystery Valley, you had the same nightmare every night: there was a vampire like creature on a slab surrounded by what appeared to be hooded monks. As an adult, you became an FBI agent, moved to the city and thought you left the nightmares behind. This dark and eerie hidden object thriller has a great soundtrack. It opens to the sound of thunder and pouring rain. The background music is phenomenal, with a concert pianist playing throughout the game. I would have bought it for the soundtrack alone. The graphics are dark, eerie, and creepy with emphasis on creepy. There are a lot of basement and haunted house scenes. There is not much handholding to the adventure part. I had to use the walkthrough several times when I was totally stumped as to what to do next because there is no hint button for the storyline, only for the hidden object scenes. The hidden object scenes are interactive, with lists or silhouttes on the bottom of the screen. The items were well drawn, the lists straightforward and unambiguous. Mini games were well done, some of them with multiple parts. This is the real deal for dark, eerie, creepy adventure lovers.

I really enjoyed playing this game. The story line was very interesting to me and well written. I enjoyed the puzzles and hidden object scenes. I would love for there to be a sequel to this one. This is one game that I will play over and over.

I loved this game most for the storyline. It's really intriguiging and kept my interest going, actually this the most important aspect of a game for me. There are loads of cutscenes that are kind of slow, but well done and tell the story in a very good way. It's a pity the voiceovers of the intro don't continue, it would have made the game much more exciting and would it have come to life much more. With VO's I would have given the game 5 stars. The music is good though and can be quite eerie at times. I deleted the game the first time I tried it after 30 minutes, but now, the second time, I got past the tedious game where you have to find some things to restore a display and after that it got really interesting! So I went ahead and bought it anyway and I'm very happy I did! The HOS can be quite challenging, as well as the puzzles, but I got through them and had a lot of fun doing that! Do not expect top of the bill graphics, in fact, the whole game feels a bit old, (I guess it is, since the first reviews date from 2011# but as I said before, the story makes up for a lot of the flaws. I had a very good time for about 3,5 hours and was very sorry it ended so soon. But not to worry, since you can continue with the new game of these dev's #see my favorite game). Try it and I hope you'll have fun too!

game kept my intrest through out and clue kept me from getting stuck.

This is not one of the highest-quality games I've played, and I wouldn't recommend paying full price for it because it was fairly short. Still, it wasn't a total stinker, either. There are some typos and incorrect labels for objects, but this happens a lot considering they are translated from other languages. The puzzles were really not that difficult, although some of them took a while to solve. I did not use any walkthroughs or skips and enjoyed being challenged (I find most puzzles way too fast and easy, sometimes even insulting). The HO scenes were challenging, and I had to use a few hints to find everything. The story line was compelling but ended too abruptly. The graphics were oddly mixed and looked like they were done by different people or with different programs; for example, the main character's face was well done, but then she has the ugliest hairstyle ever! LOL. I am recommending only at a sale price.

Not the greatest game, but not bad either. And it had a couple of things I really liked. Some common sense approaches! A locked cabinet... You have a crowbar. You don't go looking for the blue key with the yellow jewel. You use the crowbar. Ta-Da! You search in the back yard, and later work into a room adjoining the yard, and need something from out there. Do you go through the long route through all the rooms back to the yard, and then make your way slowly back? Nope, you open the window! Then go in and out from there. This kind of thing I like, and it is all too rare. It is shortish, but I do find the story engaging. Had to buy it at the 2.99 special. It has been more than worth it. I haven't found objects that hard to find, or the scenes that dark or obscure, and I am usually picky about those things. Hate them. Haven't run across an impossible puzzle, but I haven't quite finished yet. Ok, back to the game....

Game took 3 ? hours. Game had great potential that was missed. You play an FBI agent who visits her hometown. Story turns into a mystery once you find out you were born after your mother died and delve into a few adventures, including a harrowing escape, as you pursue what really happened. Ending seemed sudden and a lot more could have been made out of the ending given the subject matter. It was like they ran out of imagination - and what became of our heroine? Started out with a nice voice over, telling about a recurring childhood nightmare; then suddenly, there were only cutscenes with no voices, which couldn?t be sped up. They could have continued the voice overs to add interest to the characters, since they were necessary to the game. You have a diary with clues and reminders - no help. There are only a few things to do in each scene, which is okay with me ? not a lot of back and forth. But a couple times, I had to wonder what I was supposed to do. Hints worked only in the HOS. Artwork was drab and dingy ? even visiting a currently open museum in the hometown looked like it was abandoned 50 years ago. When will developers learn that dark and grimy isn?t what makes a HOG good ? it?s cleverly hidden objects and the adventures. Okay, to be fair, there were a couple locations that weren't too dingy. There were dark ghostly apparitions floating in some of the scenes, but no mention was ever made of them. They could have been included in the story and gameplay to make it more interesting. Now I?ll just have to go through life wondering what and why they were and what became of them. That being said, I did like what there was of the game while it lasted.

I love spooky games with vampire themes and the title intrigued me, so of course I had to try it. The hour demo sold me on purchasing so I waited for the next sale since I'm financially strapped right now. I bought it during the Thanksgiving half off sale but the very next sale that came only a week later offered it for $2.99! I wish I'd have gotten it for $2.99 instead. Not only to save needed funds, but also because I don't think I would have paid the $4.99 if I'd played the entire game first. It's not a bad game by any means but it's certainly not up to the standard of "great" like many games deserve to be named. The story starts off interestingly enough but seems to grow thin during the last chapter. Maybe it's because I didn't realize that I was so close to finishing it that the ending seemed so abrupt and anticlimactic and the vampire theme seemed almost nonexistant to me. Although the ending provided closure, it just didn't seem to be enough and the story could have unfolded more and better at the end. With that said, there was a lot that I liked about Mystery Valley. I loved the look of the artwork. The scenes are hand-drawn and very gothic looking. It reminded me of the way pictures looked in storybooks I read as a child. It was very different to see this in a game and I appreciated seeing it here. I hope Big Fish has other games that use these kind of illustrations in them. Mystery Valley is an older game so I don't want to criticize too much, but I know computer graphics were still very good 2 years ago so the character animations could have been done better. Especially towards the end with the guard. His movements were embarassingly sophomoric looking and very choppy. It distracted me from the story because I noticed how bad his movements were. The scenes with the other characters when they were in conversation looked to be of another kind of design, very cartoonish. I didn't like this much because it didn't contrast well with the other drawing style that was presented in the ba